


Paradise Circus

by pearypie



Series: blue moonlight on yellow sand [5]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Romance, F/M, Late Night Conversations, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 10:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: We are Phantomhives. We are all incomparably beautiful and corrupt.(They are an impossible collection of haphazard maybes because, as he has come to learn, wheresoever she was, there was Eden also.)His lips come to press another kiss, this time reverently, on her soft-closed mouth that parts, with holy chaos, at his touch.Pre-canon.





	Paradise Circus

She comes to him quietly, in the still of night, when his bride-to-be sleeps miles away, barricaded safely behind walls and estates. 

Slowly, the pale-crested doors open, allowing Frances to be bathed in blue moonlight. To her left, in a bed as grand and useless as anything she can imagine, Vincent sleeps, silken coverlets hiding the lower half of his body, leaving his torso and chest exposed. She can see the porcelain of his skin, how the faded scars have been illuminated by the silver moon, how the loose strands of cobalt hair cover his forehead, just kissing his cheek.

“Are you going to stand there all night sister of mine?” Vincent asks, unable to keep silent for long.

Even with his eyes closed and his sister’s footsteps feather light, he can sense of her presence. Know that she’s there, in their childhood home, waiting.

Frances does not budge. “Perhaps I shall, "she returns. “You've asked me to come and here I am, waiting like any other foolish girl would.”

“Wrong again,” he corrects cheerfully. “Any other girl would have fled by now, chased away by rose-glass dreams I’ve no interest in fulfilling.”

"Either that or they find you repulsive enough to flee on sight." She retorts with no visible change in expression. (Vincent's always had an excellent, if vivid, imagination.) 

He keeps his eyes closed, allowing memory to take hold. "You wouldn't happen to be naked would you?" 

She bristles. "Certainly not. What sort company have you been keeping these days?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

He shrugs. "Their names were unimportant and," he lowers his voice, as if confessing a very great secret, "they were  _boring_ , Frannie. Not like you and I." 

"You really do inhabit the garden of personal pride don't you?" Her footfalls echo through the still quiet and he relishes the thought that she will soon be at his side, making her way towards him,  _wanting_ to be here. 

“You’ve grown colder, Vincent.” She observes gently, neither sad nor happy—simply a statement given.

He, however, can not even bring himself to think of philosophy. Not while her waterlily fragrance is becoming more potent, when he can reach out and grab her by the waist, to bask in the warmth of her sun-fire skin, to burn his hands against her flesh because it's been so very  _long_ and he has grown so very tired. Tired of the people around him—tired of business partners and commonplace intrigue. Tired of garish looking women in their feathered gowns tittering behind champagne glasses. He's tired of the monotonous tedium of everyday life, of waiting hours, days,  _weeks_ before he can see the person he loves best—

“Vincent—“

“Come here.” He does not command but asks with a sort of force that books no room for argument. His eyes are still closed but he holds out his hand, palm open, as if asking her for a dance. “I want you to be mine.”

“You sound like a poorly writ dime novel.” She rebukes firmly. “There really is too much time on your hands these days.”

He opens his eyes at long last, allowing emerald green to meet mischievous teal. “And who’s fault is that? My very own sister—denying her only brother attention and adoration, hoping he’ll get himself eviscerated one January night—“

She laughs at that, one hand pressed against her mouth while Vincent delights in how close she’s come. Her knees brush against the swan-feather mattress and the semi-sheer ivory of her transparent nightgown slips down one fine-boned shoulder— 

“I think you’ll live,” she counters. “If only out of spite.”

“Spite? Towards who?”

“Myself.”

His mouth lifts in that strange little half-smile that is all at once adoration and amusement.

Frances brings one hand to his chest, nails against skin. “You wouldn’t spite anyone else.” She reaffirms and Vincent knows she's right.

He’s never been too fond of people—has never made an effort to loathe them as some do or denounce them as others might. There is simply an amused indifference flowing through him. It settles around Vincent, like ice and vapor, fading only when his sister comes to burn and parry and drag him to the world they’ve forged for themselves.

The pressure in Frances’s hand grows. “Are you attempting to draw blood, dearest sis?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s only—“ she bites her lip, looking almost unsure, “I want to be…“ she trails off, unwilling to succumb but unable to leave. 

He reaches for her, left hand coming to clutch at her right arm, to have her resting on top of him the way crowns do for kings. 

“Indulge me dearest sis,” he coaxes, one hand coming to tangle in her unbound hair, “what bothers you so?”

Her lips press against his shoulder, leaving butterfly kisses that half-intoxicate. “I don’t wish to tell you.” She answers boldly—almost insolently—and Vincent nearly laughs.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he teases—and it’s only Vincent Phantomhive who could sound so playful, so teasing, with steel in his voice. “You won’t get away from me so easily. I’m rather curious now—that pout of yours is lovely but if it hasn’t been brought on by me then I don’t wish to see it.”

“Well I don’t wish to see you but I’m here aren’t I?”

“Blatant lies and brilliant falsehood! Thank goodness, I was beginning to worry you weren’t a Phantomhive after all.”

“I’ve only been married for _two years_ you forgetful thing—“

“On the contrary you’ve been married a year, eight months, and 22 days.”

She gazes down at him, more irritated than swayed. “You had Tanaka keep track didn’t you?” It’s more of a question than a statement.

He shrugs off her ire. “Inconsequential.” He smiles. “But don’t let that throw you off track. You were just about to tell me why you’ve been a perpetual storm cloud these past few weeks.”

“Storm cloud?” Frances repeats, and gives a short cynical laugh that is so utterly out of place that Vincent has half a mind to kidnap her home. To escape that cream and gold marquessate with its cherubs and white marble and pristine lawns. It’s making his sister so noble—so good—that he’s begun to wonder if she might still love him at all—

“Sis?" 

She lowers her gaze. “I feel unloved.” Frances buries her face against his shoulder, lips against his clavicle.

Vincent pauses, almost thunderstruck by his sister’s statement. _Unloved?_ How could she possibly feel unloved? How could she, when _he_ is here—when she is one half of him—when he is unable, by the laws of nature, to love any other woman the way he loves her?

With a harshness that Vincent cannot ever remember exhibiting around his sister, he flips them so that she is on her back, eyes wide with surprise as Vincent looms over her, hands fisting his sister’s hair, pale gold as the moon. His own bangs brush against her forehead as he leans close, wanting this to be visceral—wanting her to _remember._

His mouth meets hers with furious force, teeth cutting themselves onFrances’s lower lip as he covers her body with his, relishing in the way she arches into him, how she responds so instinctively—

He wants to love her until she bruises, until there is visible _proof._

Frances’s tongue chases after his, coming to kiss at his lips, jaw, and throat—

Vincent breaks away, eyes dark with lust and anger and an indescribable desperation that borders on fervor—the way bishops and cardinals would look upon holy idols. This, then, is the look Vincent wears, burning like a Roman fire.

“Positively foolish.” He breathes reverently, tilting her chin so their eyes would meet. Fiery emerald and cold teal. 

She swallows whatever words she has, preferring to drink him in, to allow Vincent to see the softer emotions she’s always kept veiled and hidden. Tucked away so they are neither weaknesses to exploit nor burdens to be carried. 

Yet with Vincent—with her brother who she is _still_ tethered to whether by fate or god or the devil himself—Frances releases a shuddering sigh. 

“It’s lonely there,” she whispers, fingers tangled in his hair. “My husband has been ensconced at Buckingham and all the servants are so diligent and good that I am constantly reminded there is no room for error when one has the world watching.” He lays down beside her. “I am now a knight of England and simultaneously hold so many titles yet so few responsibilities. I am the marchioness of Scotney, the wife of Alexis Leon Midford, the mother of his heir—“ 

His lips move to kiss her shoulder. 

“And a pathetic excuse for a Phantomhive. All this weeping and self-pity. I disgust myself.” She bites back harshly, cutting tongue against teeth in a vain attempt to remember the bloodline she so carried. 

_Phantomhive._

"I ought to be grand entertainment for a Jaywick theater. All I'm missing is the garish face paint and charming black teeth.” Her nails dig into his skin.

He presses a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Come now Frannie, no need to tear me limb from limb just yet. After all, you haven’t even given me a chance to comfort you.” 

“I don’t want—“

“It’s hardly your fault.” He interrupts swiftly—easily—thumb caressing her clenched jaw. “It's tedious trying to live as a Midford ought—all valor and duty. We’re Phantomhives. Do you suppose it’s easy for us to forget our nature?”

“Perhaps not,” she concedes faintly, “but we both know I _must._ ”

“You’re a Phantomhive. You need not do anything you don’t wish. Take care to amuse yourself while you’re away, sis, but when you’re here—when you are with _me_ —you are Frances Phantomhive and no one decree say otherwise.”

His words, and the weight of the truth in them, is more honesty than Vincent Phantomhive has ever given in all his years of life. To anyone else, their meaning might have been lost (he has never been one for verbosity) but to Frances, to this fire-eyed maiden of smoky war, it pierces through her like the sharpest riposte and the faint smile on her lips is enough to reassure.

To reciprocate as he holds her close, basking in the familiarity of touch. 

His lips come to press another kiss, this time reverently, on her soft-closed mouth that parts, with holy chaos, at his touch.

“Do you suppose it might have been easier if there was true separation between us?” Her breath, warm and sweet, ghosts across his chin.

“True separation? You’ll have to specify, sister of mine.” 

“Church. God. His holiness and the Vatican.” She raises her eyes, fond and familiar in her direct, forthright gaze.

He considers. "You mean if some old man sprinkled thousand year old water on us? I think we would have turned out the same—but with damp clothing.”

She laughs at that—a bright, amused laugh that floods Vincent with warmth. Her hand, so smooth and fair on the surface, gently flicks at his shoulder with the roughened callous of her palm. “Holy orders, Vincent. Be serious.”

“Do you have some sort of immortal longing in you now? A wish to be made divine? A Madonna of the winter skies?” The amused smile on his lips is more folly then penance but Frances thinks him just handsome enough to avoid a scolding.

“I admit there was a bit of ambivalence in my inquiry but,” she smiles, “I was trying my hand at Midford honor with that line of questioning.”

“Ah,” he brushes back a strand of her silvery-gold hair. “And how do you think it turned out?" 

“Rather piteously I’m afraid.”

“For what it’s worth,” Vincent sighs, moving so her chest pressed against his, “we’ve always done fairly well with what we’ve been given.”

She arches a fair blonde brow. “And what exactly is that?”

“Shall I answer in the cliche or would you prefer my surprising ingenuity?”

His sister looks at him, the stormy emerald having quieted to a thoughtful jade. “I believe that I already know the answer to both.” She hides a smile in the crook of his neck as Vincent leans in, breathing in the fragrance of a torrential, temperamental spring. 

He smiles. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- “…burning like a Roman fire” — references the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD under the reign of Emperor Nero. 
> 
> \- “this fire-eyed maiden of smoky war” — comes from William Shakespeare’s ‘Henry IV’
> 
> \- “Do you have some sort of immortal longing in you now?” — references Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ quote “Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me now” which is spoken by Cleopatra before she commits suicide. 
> 
> A/N: You may ask, “why the hell is she so obsessed with this pairing?” to which I will answer, “I’ve got no bloody idea.” XD
> 
> (Oh and I will admit, Frances is a lot more vulnerable in this fic then in my previous ones but in my mind, she's only been married for two years here. Gave birth to Edward less than six months ago. She's suddenly being steamrolled by new responsibilities that she realizes she must take care of in a very different way than she was brought up. Throughout Black Butler the Midfords have been presented as shining exemplars of England's noble grace. They are knights who protect the weak, the heroes guarding Great Britain against internal and external malevolence, the closest reincarnation of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. 
> 
> Now look at Frances. She's a Phantomhive heiress whose family has built a legacy that is the very antithesis of the Midfords. Of course she was probably educated on the societal mannerisms/expectations of "normal" high society but because the Midfords are *also* involved in the queen's work, I'd imagine that Frances would have very specific ideas of how to deal with certain situations and encounters. But, because she's no longer a Phantomhive but a Midford, she must adjust her entire worldview. To become a beacon of hope and light and this, combined with tedium of running the Midford estates [throughout history it's women who've managed households, whether noble or common] and caring for Edward - with no female relatives around to guide her. Well, this *must* have taken its toll on Frances. So when she needs a moment of weakness, a moment to express her fears, who does she turn to? 
> 
> Her brother, Vincent.)


End file.
